The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday targeted the BJP over the death by suicide of a woman doctor in Maharashtra after alleged rape and harassment by a senior police officer.
Referring to the BJP's amplification of sexual assault incidents in West Bengal, TMC national spokesperson Shashi Panja alleged that the saffron party has become "emotionally bankrupt."
Addressing a press conference in Kolkata, she said, "We knew that the BJP has so far been politically bankrupt. But has the party now become emotionally bankrupt, too? It did not mince a word on the tragic incident in Satara."
"Where is the voice of the media now? Why are national channels quiet? Had this incident happened in West Bengal, all hell would have broken loose with members of the women's commission and human rights commission visiting the state," the TMC leader said.
Panja, the state's Women, Child Development and Social Welfare Minister, added: "Where are these agencies, and the voices that cry for justice? Don't these agencies visit BJP-ruled states where there is a double engine government? Or are these reserved only for West Bengal?"
A 28-year-old woman doctor hailing from Beed district and posted at a government hospital in Phaltan, was found hanging in a hotel room on Thursday night.
In the suicide note written on her palm, the doctor alleged that Police Sub-Inspector Gopal Badane raped her five times, while the son of her landlord, Prashant Bankar, harassed and mentally tortured her over a period of four months.
The woman, in a complaint submitted to the police, had alleged that she was being harassed by an MP. She also pointed out the police's inaction despite complaints about the assault by Badane.
Following the incident and public outrage, Satara district police formed two teams, one of which arrested Prashant Bankar from a friend’s farmhouse in Satara on Saturday morning. Bankar is set to be produced in court, while the main accused, PSI Gopal Badane, remains absconding.
